Norway Social Life and Customs

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Norway

Social Life & Customs

To be effective in family history research, it is often helpful to understand the society your ancestor lived in. Learning about everyday life, religious practices, customs, and traditions will help you appreciate your ancestor and often give you ideas for research. Those that might affect your research strategy include mortality rates, life spans, apprenticeship customs, and courting and marriage customs that affected illegitimacy rates.

• The infant mortality rate was high in most areas of Norway before the 20th century.
• This is unfortunately in Norwegian. Adults had a shorter life span than they do today, so it is necessary to search the death records in order to get a complete picture of a family.
• About the time of confirmation (between the ages of 14 and 20), young people often left home to earn their own living or to prepare themselves to do so. A young man may have signed a contract for a five-year apprenticeship to learn a trade such as shoe making, barrel making, or rope making. A young woman may have become a servant in a well-to-do household or lived with relatives to learn housekeeping.
• Norwegian marriage customs go back hundreds of years and have been changed very little by outside influences. For a long time, most of the population followed the custom that marriages took place in private. Therefore, when a young couple and their families had agreed to the marriage, they and the community around them considered them as if married. Because of this custom, the birth of the first child often occurred soon after the marriage was formalized in the church.
• The birth of illegitimate children was not uncommon. In many cases, a promise of marriage had been made or the father may have died before the formal marriage could take place.

Publications

Topic	Time period	Resource	Locations Covered
Social life and customs		Noss, Aagot. Adolph Tiedemand og folk han møtte: studiar frå reisene i norske dalføre - akvarellar, målstykke og teikningar. Oslo, Norway: Norsk folkemuseum, Universitetsforlaget , 1981	Norway
Social life and customs		Thorsøe, Alex. Af familien Ankers album: danske og norske interiører : kulturhistorisk frihaandstegning. Copenhagen, Denmark: Axel Andersens Forlag, 1902	Norway
Social life and customs		Winge, Harald. At home in rural Norway. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1980	Norway
Social life and customs	1800s	Gesme, Ann Urness. Between rocks and hard places: traditions, customs, and conditions in Norway during the 1800s, emigration from Norway, the immigrant community in America. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Gesme Enterprises, 1993	Norway
Social life and customs	1700s and 1800s	Eliassen, Jørgen and Sogner, Sølvi. Bot eller bryllup: ugifte mødre og gravide bruder i det gamle samfunnet. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1981	Norway
Social life and customs		Åkerman, Sune; Johansen, Hans Chr. and Gaunt, David. Chance and change: social and economic studies in historical demography in the Baltic area. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1986	Norway
Social life and customs		Hovdhaugen, Einar. Ekteskap og kjønnsmoral i norsk historie. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1976	Norway
Family Life		Gaunt, David. Familjeliv i Norden. [S.l.] : Gidlunds, 1983	Norway
Social life and customs		Fægri, Knut; Hardtvedt, Hagen, Gunnar; Nyquist, Finn P. Fjordheimen: Vestlandets fjorder, folk og samfunn, før og nå. Oslo, Norway: Grøndahl, 1981	Norway
Social life and customs	800 to 1990	Martinson, Floyd M. Growing up in Norway, 800 to 1990. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992	Norway
Social life and customs		Hovdhaugen, Einar. Husmannstida. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1975	Norway
Social life and customs		Identitet - en ressurs for konkurransedyktige storbyer og storbyregioner?. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 2006	Norway
Social life and customs	1850-1990	de Coninck-Smith, Ning; Sandin, Bengt; and Schrumpf, Ellen. Industrious children : work and childhood in the Nordic countries 1850-1990. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1997	Norway
Social life and customs		Olsen, Kåre. Krigens barn- de norske krigsbarna og deres mødre. Arkivmagasinet - 12. Årg. (1998) - Årg. 12, nr. 3. 1998	Norway
Social life and customs	late Middle Ages	Jørgensen, Torstein; Saletnich, Gastone. Letters to the Pope : Norwegian relations to the Holy See in the late Middle Ages. Stavanger, Norway: Misjonshøgskolens forlag, 1999	Norway
Social life and customs		Winge, Harald. Life in the cities of Norway. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1980	Norway
Social life and customs		Hutchison, Ragnhild. Lokale tråder: tråkling gjennom tekstil- og lokalhistorie. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 2006	Norway
Social life and customs		Johnsen, Oscar Albert. Norges bønder: utsyn over den norske bondestands historie. Kristiania, Norway: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1919	Norway
Social life and customs		Brace, Charles Loring. The Norse-Folk: or, a visit to the homes of Norway and Sweden. New York, New York: Charles Scribner, 1857	Norway
Social life and customs		Bugge, Anders. Norsk kulturhistorie: billeder av folkets dagligliv gjennem årtusener. Oslo, Norway : Cappelens, 1942	Norway
Social life and customs	1650-1800	Eliassen, Finn-Einar. Norsk småbyføydalisme?: grunneiere, huseiere og husleiere i norske småbyer ca. 1650-1800. Oslo, Norway: Den Norske Historiske Forening, 1999	Norway
Social life and customs		Berg, Arne. Norske gardstun. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1968	Norway
Social life and customs		Vanberg, Bent. Norwegian Bunads. Oslo, Norway: Hjemmenes Forlag, 1982	Norway
Social life and customs		Vanberg, Bent. Of Norwegian ways. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Dillion Press, 1970	Norway
Social life and customs	1735-1865	Drake, Michael. Population and society in Norway, 1735-1865. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969	Norway
Social life and customs		Winge, Harald. Slekt & lokalsamfunn. Oslo, Norway: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1998	Norway
Social life and customs	1700-1940	Kent, Neil. The soul of the north: a social, architectural and cultural history of the Nordic countries, 1700-1940. London, England: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2001	Norway
Social life and customs		Helle, Knut. Vestlandets historie. Bergen, Norway: Vigmostad & Bjorke, 2006	Norway
Social life and customs		Visted, Kristofer. Vor gamle bondekultur. Kristiania, Norway: J.W. Cappelens Forlag, 1923	Norway
Social life and customs		Hovdhaugen, Einar. Vårt møte med døden. Oslo, Norway: Det Norske Samlaget, 1981	Norway
Social life and customs		Hodne, Bjarne. Å leve med døden: folkelige forestillinger om døden og de døde. Oslo, Norway: Forlagt av H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), 1980	Norway
Social life and customs		Nordmanns-Forbundet. The Norseman. Oslo, Norway: Nordmanns-Forbundet, 1960	Norway
Culture and Customs		O'Leary, Margaret Hayford. Culture and Customs of Norway. Greenwood Publishing, 2010	Norway
Social life and customs		March, Linda Davis; Meyer, Margo. Norway. London: Kuperard, 2019	Norway
Social life and customs	19th century	Burchardt, C.B. Norwegian life and literature; English accounts and views, especially in the 19th century. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1974	Norway
Social life and customs		Daniels, H. K. Home life in Norway. New York, Macmillan Co., 1912	Norway
Social life and customs	19th century	Gesme, Ann Urness. Between rocks and hard places: traditions, customs and conditions in Norway during the 1800s, emigration from Norway, the immigrant community in America. Cedar Rapids, IA: Gesme Enterprises, 1993	Norway
Customs and etiquette		Su-Dale, Elizabeth. Culture shock! Norway: [a guide to customs and etiquette]. Portland, Or.: Graphic Arts Center Publ., 2003	Norway
Social life and customs	1735-1865	Drake, Michael. Population and society in Norway, 1735-1865. London, Cambridge U.P., 1969	Norway
Social life and customs		Rørvik, Ole P. Norway. Trondheim, [Norway]: Aune Forlag AS, 2009	Norway
Social life and customs		Tomkinson, Michael; Bjercke, Alf R. Norway. Oxford: Tomkinson, 1991	Norway
Social life and customs	to 1800	Pontoppidan, Erich. The natural history of Norway : containing, a particular and accurate account of the temperature of the air, the different soils, waters, vegetables, metals, minerals, stones, beasts, birds, and fishes : together with the dispositions, customs, and manner of living of the inhabitants: interspersed with physiological notes from eminent writers, and transactions of academies : in two parts. London: A. Linde, 1755	Norway
Social life and customs		Malmström, Vincent Herschel; Malmström, Ruth M. Life in Europe : Norway. Grand Rapids : Fideler Co., 1962	Norway
Social life and customs		Berg, Nevada. North wild kitchen: home cooking from the heart of Norway. Munich; New York: Prestel Verlag, 2018	Norway
Social life and customs		Gullestad, Marianne. Everyday life philosophers: modernity, morality and autobiography in Norway. Oslo; Boston: Scandinavian University Press, 1996	Norway
Social life and customs		Clough, Ethlyn T. Norwegian life; an account of past and contemporary conditions and progress in Norway and Sweden. Detroit, Mich., The Bay View Reading Club 1912	Norway
Social life and customs	800 to 1990	Martinson, Floyd Mansfield. Growing up in Norway, 800 to 1990. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992	Norway

Additional Sources

• Scandinavian Folklore
• Norway Weights and Measurement
• See the article Bunad for information on women and customs.
• Norwegian periodicals are a particularly good source of information about social life and customs. For more information, see the "Periodicals" section.
• The bygdebok discussed in the "Genealogy" section describes the local customs in the various parts of Norway. *Also see the Societies" Wiki article.